


Think of Me Fondly (When We've Said Goodbye)

by orphan_account



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love repeats itself across the years, but does it ever turn out happily ever after?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Think of Me Fondly (When We've Said Goodbye)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Asselin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asselin/gifts).



> I'm awfully sorry, I know you said you didn't like depressing for its own sake and thats kinda what this ended up being. If you're too bummed out, just ask and I'll write you a bonus fluff and sugar NYR fic because this is my fault for not paying attention, OK? The song I listened to while I wrote is Billy Talent's 'The Dead Can't Testify.

  
CHAPTER ONE  
  
  
  
  
  
  
       It was not a usual concern in mid-summer  that the little old church be snug and tight against the night chill, but that was the lesser reason why midnight found the unfortunate Vicomte de Chagny huddled beneath his jacket in the hollow behind the altar, having at last ceased his struggles with the church's jammed outer door and resigned himself to waiting out the dark hours until early risers to whom he could call for help would bestir themselves from their warm houses. Perhaps dawn would restore sanctity to the old chancel and cast out the demon crouched, glowering, among the choir's benches.   
  
       "How cold you must be!" hissed the demon, the great yellow lamps of its eyes flickering slyly. "How numb and alone, dear. Come out from there, come out and we shall see if you know the meaning of cold yet. Would you learn what it is to be ice? No! For even ice warms under the sun, it melts by a fireside, boils in the stewpot. While I," it snarled, gliding nearer on a gust of icy air, "I cannot melt. Never. ... Never can I feel the sun or the comfort of a fire's heat on my skin. _Because of you!"_ And the terrible voice rose to a roar of wrath that made the old building creak and moan as if its very timbers shared in Raoul's dread.   
  
       "I have done nothing to you!" cried the youth, pressed so tightly to the foot of the altar that the wood dug into his flesh.   
  
       "Ah! So says the brat, the son of liars and murderers! Do you dare to claim innocence? Their sins run in your blood and betray you.”  
  
       "My father was an honest man and no murderer, nor my mother!" Raoul denied forcefully; the slander on his family's honour restored some of the courage that had deserted him when the candles snuffed out and left him to fumble with the unyielding door in darkness. Alone with that malevolent presence circling, there seemed, as it said, no warmth in the world.   
  
       "Not with their own hands, perhaps," the monster sneered. "But they are as culpable as you, for the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the heads of the children, even unto the third and fourth generation. You can find that in the Bible, here in this pestilent shack these people call a holy place. What do you say to that, then? Your very God condemns you and upholds my claim to your blood!"   
  
       Shuddering, hardly believing his own insolence, the Vicomte retorted:   
  
       "I am a Catholic, Monsieur, baptized into the New Testament. The partial verse you cite is in the Old Testament and taken far out of its context. It does not mean what you say it does."  
  
       "Never mind, M. de Chagny."   
  
       But there was a sulkiness in the voice that had not been there before, and Raoul felt somewhat heartened by this proof that it could be met and turned back.    
  
       After a moment it resumed morosely, "You may believe yourself an innocent but I tell you, your ancestry calls you out. My assailants may have escaped vengeance, but I will not be denied. I will have satisfaction! And if the blood must be yours, let it be yours. Come out from there and perform your penance honourably."   
  
       "How can I repent of an act I have not committed? An act I know nothing about, for while you accuse me endlessly, you have yet to make explicit the circumstances or define my culpability in them."   
  
       "I told you; you are a Chagny."   
  
       "That doesn't explain anything."   
  
       The glow of the demon's eyes dimmed and began to make sweeping passes back and forth among the benches. It paced soundlessly, a tiger testing the perimeters of its cage. The church seemed to shed a few more degrees of temperature and Raoul drew his knees up to his chest and clutched freezing hands over them, shaking with cold and nerves.   
  
       "You are a Chagny," the voice growled. "You are a descendant of the man who murdered me right here on the grounds of this church."   
  
  
  
  
  
  
CHAPTER TWO  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   "Murdered," echoed the Vicomte, the colour draining from his cheeks.  
  
   "A haunt," he whispered to his hands, and fancied that the smell of death was on the breath of air displaced by the other's passing. "A phantom."   
  
   "A man, once. But they put an end to that. _Because she looked at me kindly."_   
  
   "'She'?"   
  
   "Yes. My love. My angel, my beautiful Christine."   
  
   And the ghost gave a moan of such agony that Raoul, in his shock, was kindled with reluctant pity for the awful creature. Sinking near to the floor, it half-shuttered the lamps of its eyes, sobbing and muttering to itself. It seemed to forget that the Vicomte was there, and an hour or more passed in frozen silence but for its lamentations before either of them moved again.

  
  
  
   "I do not concede that I must die for my forefather's crime," said Raoul softly. "But perhaps you might explain more of the murder you accuse him of."   
  
   "Why should I do that? You don't care a bit about me; you're only trying to preserve your wretched skin a few moments longer!"   
  
   "Of course I am! Do you think I am so eager to die at your hands? But as you keep demanding that I come out to you, and you do not simply come here to slay me, I will wager with my life that you _cannot take take my blood unless I come out."_   
  
   The youth breathed deeply and tremulous, coughing as his lungs recoiled from the chill. With clumsy hands he tugged his jacket closer, wracked by the violence of his spasmodic coughs.    
  
   The ghost stared at him with blazing, furious eyes, so near the floor that Raoul feared he had made a mortal misjudgement and that it was preparing to spring upon him, like a cat, to tear him to pieces. But after a tense moment in which it failed to do anything more than snarl and resume its pacing, he began to think that he might after all survive the night.  
  
   Having three times circled the altar by which the Vicomte lay half-concealed, the ghost halted abruptly before Raoul. It hissed belligerently as it spoke:   
  
   "They called me a monster from the day of my birth. My own mother the first to say it! She made me wear a mask to cover my deformities but everyone knew that I had been born wrong. Cursed. A sign from Heaven that my nature was evil. There was many an explanation for what I was! No one looked at me except to spit or throw stones, and as I grew, so too grew the cruelties heaped upon me. Murder was only the final escalation, you see. Truly, I should have seen it coming!"   
  
   "Who was she? ... Your Christine."   
  
   "A farmer's daughter. A cherub with the most beautiful blue eyes you ever saw and hair like sunlight. And oh, how she sang! As if her heart must overflow in music or burst! Her father was a quite decent fiddler and he would play, and she would make all the old songs new again with her angel's voice. I used to creep near to listen under her window when she sang. ... Until I was caught there one fine day by M. de Chagny."   
  
   "And he killed you?" whispered the Vicomte.   
  
   "Not yet. It was only a beating that day and I was well used to those. The young Comte de Chagny was one of many suitors vying for Christine's attention, but he always acted as though he had sole claim over her. As though he wanted to marry her! Why, think how a peasant girl’s blood must muddy the fine Chagny pedigree! No, a season's dalliance was all he wanted with my Christine! I despised him, but what could I do? She wouldn't listen when I tried to tell her.   
  
   "And of course, the Comte returned my hatred because he knew I had warned her against him and because she would not cease her kindnesses to me. She was never ashamed to speak to me on the street where all could see!" The ghost's voice rang with triumph.   
  
   A curious lassitude had settled over Raoul as it unfolded its horrible tale. His nook under the altar seemed to have absorbed his body heat as he lay there, for he now began to feel nearly warm tucked within it and under his jacket. His exposed hands and face were fully numbed and no longer caused him any pain comparable to that in his soul, neither did their clumsiness cause him any annoyance as he had no desire to move or to speak. He had no thought beyond his heart’s agony at the things the ghost said.    
  
   "It was the outbreak that gave him his excuse to be rid of me permanently," it proceeded. "In the spring of the year, a fever swept across the countryside and put a goodly portion of the people in their beds, too weak to rise. The old and infirm, the young in their prime, men and women, children, it struck them all. Everyone went down with it, though some only for a few days before regaining their health. Many died.   
  
   "But I? I never took ill. Not even a touch. The talk against me in town grew to a roar so I stayed hidden away on the lands farmed by Christine's father. I thought I would be safest there, and might have been if not for the Comte. He stirred up the whole countryside against me. He and the priest! They spread the word that I was the Devil's child and the cause of the outbreak. They said that I had put a curse on the people! Well, if I had possessed the power I would have! Superstitious fools! Ah, but I knew when they found me that night and dragged me before the Comte what it was truly about. My angel. He wanted me dead so that he could have her to himself, and any excuse would serve!  
  
   "There was a mockery of a trial officiated by the Comte de Chagny, and the priest also asked me a great many useless questions, mostly concerning my lack of attendance to church service and confessional. At the end of it, the Comte declared me guilty of witchcraft. Then they stood me up in the centre of town and hung me by the neck from a gibbet until I died. And that was no small time, I tell you!  
  
   "They had tied a sack over my head when they captured me, so I had no idea where I was until they removed it as the noose was being placed over my head. How I laughed when I saw that they had brought me before the church!"   
  
   At this utterance the ghost indeed began to laugh, and Raoul shrank from the terrible sound. The echoes made it seem that a hundred ghosts assailed and ringed him in on every side, bearing him down with their demented laughter. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut against the pain in his heart, making two great tears overspill and drip down his waxen cheek.   
  
"And what of... your Christine? Tell me...," he begged weakly, "what became of her?"   
  
   "I was dead!" snapped the ghost, its merriment vanishing in a flash. _"What do you think became of her?_ No other had the nerve to stand between the Comte and what he desired. He had his way! And somehow she made him marry her honestly. Comtesse Christine de Chagny! I suppose that they were happy ever after and produced a dozen shrieking brats to carry on his wretched family name!"   
  
   It reared to its full height and towered over the Vicomte's anguished form with menace billowing from its dark shape like a fog. "Now come out to me!" it roared. "Suffer your penance as you promised!"   
  
   "I..."   
  
   "You did promise! I have told you my story, now keep your word, M. de Chagny! You will die as I did, in pain and fear, knowing your murderer will go free and pleased with his deed! You will die, leaving those you love behind you without a last farewell. And will they grieve you, M'sieur? Or will they forget as Christine did?"   
  
   "She will forget!" gasped the Vicomte, overcome at last. Weeping had devastated his bloodless face, the tears frozen on his cheeks like perfect seed pearls. Tormented blue eyes turned upward to the church's ceiling, seeking blindly.     
  
   "She has already forgotten me," he sobbed. _"My Christine._ She was wed to another man... this morning in Paris. I told her it was for the best... and that I was glad for her. ... But I lied! ... I hate him, I hate him. Oh, how could I ever have let her go? ... All because of my damnable title! ... I don't care if she was only an opera girl, she was the world to me. ... But too late now to beg her forgiveness... beg her to be my wife."   
  
   Gasping through his tears, Raoul began painstakingly to pull himself upright against the altar. He whispered, "Monsieur, I came here tonight... to pray for guidance. I wished to die. ... Yet when you demanded my life, I shrank away in fear. ... I thought then I had decided to live... but what is there for me on this earth? ... My parents are dead... my brother is dead... my sisters married... and Christine is gone from me forever. ... So, you see... you will have your revenge in full."   
  
   "Yes," sighed the ghost greedily, flinging its shadow arms wide. It beckoned invitingly, like a mother to her toddling child. "At last. Come to me now, dear. Come."   
  
   "Wait. You must promise me... that you will haunt this place no more... once you have taken my life."   
  
   "Your life is what I linger for. Once I have it, why should I stay? What is there for me here?"   
  
   "What, indeed."   
  
   Heavy summer rain burst from the swollen clouds above and thundered down upon the roof of the old church in sheets as, weak and faltering as a toddling child to its mother, Raoul de Chagny went to the phantom's icy embrace.     
  
  



End file.
